


Snapshots

by Ladybug_21



Series: Compartments [5]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Backstory, Curry, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Gen, Hate Crimes, Love in the Time of Corona, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: While stuck in quarantine at Sharon Bishop's flat in London, Jocelyn Knight reflects on some of the small moments that have defined her professional and personal life to date. Set in the middle ofCompartments.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe, Sharon Bishop & Jocelyn Knight
Series: Compartments [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660780
Comments: 30
Kudos: 118





	1. Milk

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Sue for throwing these prompts at me! I really did feel like I cheated narratively in [_Compartments_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23174665), by glossing over how Sharon and Jocelyn might have interacted outside of lawyering, while waiting out quarantine together in Sharon's flat. So please accept more of that dynamic, in the form of scaffolding for the other Jocelyn backstory ideas that you suggested I write.
> 
> I own no rights to _Broadchurch_ or any of its characters. Also, while understanding these vignettes do not require having read the rest of this [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660780), be forewarned that they probably will make a lot more sense in the context of having done so. Probably the only critical background is that, in the story that inspired this one, Jocelyn is up in London in March 2020, working on a case with Sharon just as the COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to hit the UK, when she suddenly falls very ill; and, rather than send her back to Broadchurch where Maggie might be put at risk, Sharon instead quarantines them both in her flat.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," Sharon said as Jocelyn emerged into the dining room of Sharon's flat, for the first time since Jocelyn's fever broke. "Here, I'll get you some breakfast."

Jocelyn gratefully sat down at the dining room table as Sharon strode off into her kitchen. Much as Jocelyn had insisted that she was ready and able to get back to work, she had to concede that Sharon had been very sensible in calmly refusing to let Jocelyn do anything at all strenuous until she was well enough to stay awake for more than a few hours at a go. Still, having spent as much time as she had lying around in Jonah's childhood bedroom—scrolling through the news, texting Maggie, scrolling through the news some more, finally curling up and falling back asleep when the existential anxiety and her own fatigue became too much—Jocelyn was eager to put her mind to something _useful_ again. And so now, showered and wearing clothes other than pyjamas and finally able to move about without fretting about becoming dizzy, she pulled a folder towards her and opened it up.

"Tea and crumpets," Sharon said as she returned to the dining room, and she set these items down in front of Jocelyn, who put the folder aside. "And butter and jam?"

"Yes, please," said Jocelyn. When she took a sip of tea, she was surprised to find that it contained exactly the ratio of milk she would have poured for herself. She was contemplating this fact when Sharon reentered.

"Don't tell me I've misremembered how you take your tea?"

"On the contrary," said Jocelyn, "I'm shocked you knew exactly how much milk to add." She frowned. "I never demanded that you make my tea for me, did I?"

"I offered, once or twice." Sharon sat down across from Jocelyn. "But no, I mainly remembered because I take mine with a boatload of milk, and the only reason I didn't need to buy more milk every other day for your chambers is because you barely took any with yours. We balanced each other out, on that score."

Jocelyn sighed slightly as she set down her tea and tugged the tub of butter towards her.

"I apologise, for making you buy teabags and milk for me, all those years."

Sharon raised her eyebrows.

"Apology accepted. Only three decades late, but I'll take it."

Jocelyn put down the butter knife and pursed her lips.

"Was I truly that tyrannical of a boss, Sharon? Be honest with me."

Sharon took her time thinking.

"Existing in your shoes now, it wasn't so much the long hours," she admitted. "I mean, as a single mum, I didn't appreciate that, of course, but I knew even then that the long hours were what made the work the quality that it was. If I'm honest, Jocelyn, I think it was really your attitude, more than anything else. I'm probably just as tyrannical as you were back then, and I'm sure my juniors hate my guts for it. But at least I make a solid effort to befriend them, along the way."

"I never realised that that was what you expected of me."

"Well," shrugged Sharon, "all water under the bridge now."

She sipped her own tea as Jocelyn contemplatively spread jam on a crumpet.

"Only it's not," Jocelyn said finally. "Because it speaks to a larger systemic problem, doesn't it, of Queen's Counsels taking gross advantage of their juniors. And it's something I shouldn't have perpetuated."

"You're not trying to tell me that you had your own years of fetching teabags on demand?"

"In fact, I am," Jocelyn said.

She could still recall the first day that her own barrister had demanded that she go buy milk for his chambers. She hadn't questioned it then, of course. She was his pupil, after all, and he still maintained about him an air of the lieutenant that he had been on the beaches of Normandy. One did not question his orders; one simply obeyed. And so, when he barked at Jocelyn to go get some more milk, she had leapt up immediately to do his bidding. Eventually, she stopped needing his reminders, and simply bought the milk whenever it ran out. It somehow never occurred to her that—as the youngest person in chambers, and the one with the lowest salary, and the only woman, and in fact the first female pupil this barrister had ever taken on—this arrangement might have been problematic.

"Miss Knight," a man said to her, tipping his hat as she passed him on Holborn one afternoon, a carton of milk clutched in one hand.

"Fred!" Jocelyn stopped, grinning. "How are you?"

"Oh, well, big case going into trial next week, so things are about as mad you'd expect. Still, beats the alternative. Do swing by our side of the quad after the insanity has died down a bit, won't you?"

Jocelyn nodded, trying not to look too pleased. For reasons still unbeknownst to her, Fred had taking a liking to Jocelyn, and she got the distinct impression that he was trying to recruit her for his junior, once her pupillage finished. Which seemed like quite a good option, in Jocelyn's eyes, as it would allow her to stay within Gray's Inn and work with someone she liked infinitely better as a person than her current boss.

"Good luck with the trial," she said.

"Thanks for that." Fred paused, furrowing his brow at the milk in Jocelyn's hands. "Oh, dear lord, is Lawrence being a tyrant again?"

"What?" Jocelyn knew that her barrister was not Fred's favourite person, but she couldn't imagine what might have provoked Fred's ire this time.

"Jocelyn," Fred sighed, "you _have_ to tell him to stop sending you out like an errand girl. You're his pupil, for god's sake! He's supposed to be training you to be a top-notch barrister, not exploiting your diligence and your spryer step."

"I'm happy to do it," replied Jocelyn loyally, even though she truly was weary of spending her hard-earned money on milk for her barrister and his junior. She had fallen into the habit of taking as little milk as possible for herself when at work, as a pure matter of thrift, and she reused all of her teabags for the same reason.

"Well, you shouldn't be."

"Look," sighed Jocelyn, "maybe you can make such bold statements to Lawrence, but I can't. He's my boss, Fred, and I'm at the bottom of the pecking order of his chambers. I'd only make him angry, and that would make my second six a true nightmare. And don't you dare say anything to him, on my behalf. He'd only think that I went whinging to you, and that wouldn't bode well for anyone."

Fred nodded, still bristling.

"Fair enough. But you should know this much, Jocelyn: Of all of the pupils I have ever known Lawrence to have, you are the first he's ever sent out to buy more milk for his chambers. Put that together with what else you know, and make of it what you will."

And, with a nod, Fred departed.

"So, your barrister was clearly a total arse," Sharon concluded. "Did you ever confront him over his blatant sexism?"

"What do you think?" Jocelyn smiled grimly. "Who knows, if I'd gone to work for Fred, instead of staying on with Lawrence, I might have turned out a very different boss, by the time you became my pupil."

Sharon blinked.

"Why on earth _didn't_ you? Sounds like Fred actually treated you like a human being."

"Because Lawrence was considered the best barrister at Gray's Inn." Jocelyn shrugged. "Stupidest reason imaginable, to stay on with a horrible, abusive boss. It wasn't as if Fred was regarded _that_ much less highly, but the superlative mattered to me. And thankfully, Fred and I remained friends, long after I'd left Lawrence. Although I think Fred never quite got over his disappointment that I didn't repay his kindness by joining him. The point is, by the time I was ready to set up my own chambers, I'd imprinted on Lawrence to such an extent that of _course_ I was going to ask my junior or my pupil to buy my teabags and milk for me. I suppose I must have felt like I'd put in my years of doing it for other people's chambers, and I had earned the right to impose the obligation on someone else in my own. How foolish of me."

Sharon quirked a smile at Jocelyn.

"Well, much as I resented being on the errand-running end of things for you, I'll confess that the tradition rubbed off on me, too. Only circumstantially, though. I like my current junior enough that I don't hold her accountable for keeping the cupboards stocked, even if it is a bother when we run out of things. In fact, I think the last junior I scolded for not keeping on top of the tea situation was Abby Thompson, and by god, she deserved it, for one reason or another."

Jocelyn snorted softly and took another sip of her perfectly made tea as she opened the folder back up and, taking a bite of crumpet, began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel it's only fair to mention that Fred first appeared in my story [_Iron_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085991), in which he displays a far less sympathetic side while commenting on the political trends of the 1980s, even if he's still just as fond as Jocelyn then as here.


	2. Lipstick

"Maggie says hello," Jocelyn told Sharon one evening, re-emerging from Jonah's bedroom and taking her seat back at Sharon's dining room table.

"Hello back to Maggie," Sharon said, without looking up. "How is she?"

Jocelyn smiled.

"If you mean generally speaking, you're asking a very biased source."

"Ah." Sharon's eyebrows bobbed upwards and then back down. "So, the best thing since sliced bread, and hopefully also healthy?"

"Yes. On both counts."

Sharon watched as Jocelyn put on her reading glasses, opened her laptop, and skimmed a document to find where she had left off. The light from the screen illuminated Jocelyn's face in a chilled blue, making her look almost ghostly.

"I'm going ask an incredibly rude question," Sharon announced. "Why, exactly, did it take you over fifteen years to get together with Maggie, when you clearly have been mad for each other from the start?"

Jocelyn glanced up, scowling.

"You _know_ why. Because I was too afraid."

"All right, fine, the old excuse," scoffed Sharon. "But you knew even back then that a lot of people had their suspicions about you, right? And you wouldn't have had to have made a _production_ out of any relationship, you know. You simply could have had reason to go back to Broadchurch to visit your mother much more often. Wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have been _something_ , at least, and better than shutting poor Maggie out of your life for so long. And no one in London would have called you out on it, if you'd been discreet."

Jocelyn, ignoring Sharon, stared at her screen for a few moments longer, scrolled down half a page. Then she emitted an almost imperceptible sigh.

"A few years before you started your pupillage," she said very quietly, still staring at her screen, "something... happened to me. It made me too afraid to trust Maggie like I should have, even a decade later, when I met her. And far too afraid of who might be watching, to see if I had anyone like Maggie in my life."

Sharon didn't expect Jocelyn to continue, not after an ominous beginning like that. But, to her surprise, Jocelyn did, still not meeting Sharon's gaze.

"It was in the middle of a case, must have been in the mid-eighties. Prosecuting an assault and robbery, I think, although that's not important."

Because what _was_ important was the way that Jocelyn's heart still fluttered just a bit at the thought of Madeleine Beaumont, Viscountess Westhaven, with her noble profile and her vivid blue eyes and the way a coy smile could emerge, slowly and subtly, from the depths of her icy demeanour. Madeleine Beaumont, who met Jocelyn parry for parry in intellect and in intensity and in self-restraint. She was the most perfect legal adversary that Jocelyn could imagine, and even now, despite having hated her as passionately as Jocelyn had, Jocelyn could not stop the deep ache from returning, the ghost of the longing that she had felt upon leaving each conference with her opposing counsel.

The most frustrating part of it all was that Jocelyn couldn't have just removed herself from the case. What would she have told the judge? _Excuse_ _me, My Lord, but I simply can't concentrate; if you hadn't noticed, the counsel for the defence is the most distractingly captivating human imaginable._ And that was the problem, in the end. Nothing she could have explained to anyone would have made sense, out in the open.

Jocelyn had become quite accustomed to handling herself around Madeleine Beaumont, concealing her desire for the other barrister with cool smiles and cutting retorts. But it was all undone when Madeleine appeared in the doorway of Jocelyn's chambers, the evening before the trial was set to begin.

"It seems you've been left to sort through the rest of this all alone," the Viscountess said nonchalantly, stepping through the door as if she had every conceivable right to be there.

"Madeleine." Jocelyn's throat had gone dry, and she stood in surprise. "I'm sorry, did I overlook a meeting we had scheduled?"

Madeleine's mouth twisted slowly into one of her enigmatic smiles, her sapphire gaze locked on Jocelyn's like that of a cat waiting to pounce.

"Not scheduled, no."

"May I ask why you're here, then?"

Jocelyn was aware of how hard her heart was pounding as Madeleine walked slowly around the desk, her eyes never leaving Jocelyn's. Every rational part of her brain was screaming to run, but Jocelyn found herself frozen to the spot, her entire body buzzing with anticipation. She couldn't bring herself to believe (to _dare_ to believe) that someone as elegant and pristine and painfully beautiful as Madeleine Beaumont would ever want _her_ —not until Madeleine had pressed her lips to Jocelyn's with a hunger that threw Jocelyn entirely off her guard. The pair staggered away from Jocelyn's desk, Madeleine's hand cradling the back of Jocelyn's head against the wall as her tongue flicked over Jocelyn's; and Jocelyn moaned into Madeleine's mouth as Madeleine's free hand skimmed over Jocelyn's body, first lightly teasing, then with more pressure, then snaking under the waistline of Jocelyn's trousers. Jocelyn, being the epitome of caution and thus the epitome of self-denial, had only ever dreamt of letting another woman touch her like this; and it was all as delirious and impossible as a vision, pure ecstasy to be made to tremble and buck and cry out by a being as impossibly perfect as Madeleine.

When it was all over, and Jocelyn lay gasping on the floor of her chambers, her clothes a mess, lipstick smeared on her lips and jawline and collarbone, Madeleine sat in the chair at Jocelyn's desk, checked in compact mirror to make sure her hair looked as flawless as ever, reapplied her lipstick, and left without a word.

The next day in court, predictably, was complete anguish.

Jocelyn had always prided herself on her professionalism, and on her ability to shove her personal problems into compartments as need be, for the sake of her work. But what to do when the personal problem was seated across the courtroom from her, as composed and gorgeous as ever, even in her black robe and powdered wig? Every subtle gesture that Madeleine made—every confident half-smile, every graceful flick of a wrist, every glimpse of that tongue of hers between her tantalising lips—was enough to drive Jocelyn into a fit of madness. She sat helpless across the aisle, her mind desperately fighting off fantasies, trying to fix her attention on the defence's arguments, rather than on the woman making them.

But Jocelyn's focus was hopelessly lost. So, too, was the case.

"You cheated," Jocelyn said stonily.

Madeleine straightened from where she had been touching up her lipstick in the mirror.

"Did I?" she asked, one perfect eyebrow arching slightly higher as her gaze met Jocelyn's reflection. "Well, if I did, you certainly didn't raise any objections at the time."

Jocelyn's eyes darted to the door of the toilets, to make sure no one else was entering. A pit of humiliation and rage burned deep within her gut.

"I should report you, you know."

"For what?" Madeleine finally turned away from the sinks and towards Jocelyn. "For giving you something that you so _desperately_ wanted? I can't think of any ethical rules against that. And besides, who would believe you, if you accused me of such a thing? Haven't you heard about my infamously glamorous and picture-perfect marriage?"

Jocelyn had, and her rage flared all the more over Madeleine's mentioning it.

"It clearly wasn't your first time with a woman."

"It clearly was yours," Madeleine countered with a regal smirk. "My husband and I do truly adore each other, but we grant one another our own little dalliances. And I'm _very_ discreet about mine; you wouldn't find anyone else willing to corroborate your claims about me, if you handed them over to the press. Where would that leave you, then? Here you are, on the brink of becoming a QC, the legal world at your feet—and you'd risk all of that to get back at me for this one paltry win, when proclaiming that you'd allowed me to seduce you on the eve of trial would only expose you and, moreover, make you look like a complete lunatic?"

Hot tears burned just behind Jocelyn's eyes, but she refused to let a single one spill. Smiling with angelic smugness, Madeleine took a step forward and ran a finger slowly along Jocelyn's jawline.

"For whatever it's worth, I enjoyed it, quite a lot," purred Madeleine, her scarlet mouth moving so dangerously close to Jocelyn's ear that Jocelyn could feel her warm breath. Jocelyn shuddered slightly, then jerked away from Madeleine.

"Go to hell," she spat, and she stormed out into the corridor of the courthouse. Not until she arrived back in the safety of her own flat did Jocelyn allow herself to collapse and sob for what felt like an eternity.

Sharon—who had received only the most threadbare outline of this account—was nonetheless staring in horror at Jocelyn.

" _Jesus_ ," she said finally. "What an unbelievably shitty thing to do. And I say this as someone who has done some truly shitty things to throw off my opponents in court. Did you ever tell anyone?"

Jocelyn shook her head.

"Not until now, no." Her mouth twisted grimly. "It still hurts to remember. Which is ridiculous, seeing as it was one case, a long time ago, and I've since found someone whom I trust absolutely to want me for all the right reasons."

"I'd find it much harder to believe that it _didn't_ still hurt." Sharon scowled. "After all, success doesn't stop you from being human, does it? You think I don't still lie awake at night, seething over some of the names I've been called, even by people I haven't seen in decades and whose lot in life I've far surpassed?"

When Jocelyn didn't reply, Sharon got up and made them both tea.

"I understand now," she said, offering a mug to Jocelyn. "And, glad as I was already that you'd found Maggie, I'm all the more so, now."

Jocelyn took the mug with a small smile.

"Me, too," she agreed in a soft voice.

"You'll be back with her soon enough," Sharon promised. "We're more than halfway through our fortnight of enforced quarantine, after all. Not as bad as you'd feared, I hope?"

"No," said Jocelyn.

Which wasn't exactly true, of course. The occasional text or video call was nowhere close to being enough for Jocelyn, when it came to Maggie, and the fact that she was stranded here, while disease ravaged the entire planet and Maggie was still out there all alone, made Jocelyn want to scream. But both Jocelyn and Sharon knew that, with enough patience, the whole ordeal would eventually come to an end and fade into a surreal memory. And because of that, Jocelyn could bite back her frustration and accept what she could not control.

Taking a sip of tea, Jocelyn woke her laptop back up, Sharon mirroring her former boss across the dining room table. In the eerie silence of a London void of cars and pedestrians, other than the occasional ambulance screaming down the street, the two barristers settled back into their work, determined to wait out the storm as best they could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, by the way, in case anyone is curious, I _definitely_ imagined Gillian Anderson when I wrote the character of Madeleine Beaumont. In my mind, she's basically Stella Gibson from _The Fall_ , but totally unscrupulous. Have fun with that headcanon.


	3. Curry

" _Surely_ there must be more news on your end?" Jocelyn insisted, smiling at Maggie's earnest face on the screen of her phone. "You at least can go outside; the only variation in scenery that we get is whatever passes by the windows."

"Well, my project with Paul Coates is coming along nicely," said Maggie cheerfully. "Still not saying a word more about it until I can show it to you in person tomorrow. Only one more day."

Jocelyn nodded. She, too, had been silently counting down the days until it was safe for her to return to Broadchurch. It felt a bit like being a child again, counting down to one's birthday, or opening the windows on an Advent calendar in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

"I can't wait," she said softly. "I miss you more than I can say."

"The feeling's mutual, petal." Maggie tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "No chance I can convince you to retire and never leave Broadchurch again after this, is there?"

"Hmm, well, the problem is, the last time I tried to retire, this troublemaker I knew demanded that I give up my well-deserved peace and quiet, and go straight back into practising the law..."

"I'm serious," Maggie laughed. "Or, if nothing else, take on fewer trials, or let Sharon argue more of them. Maybe videoconference into the courtroom from your office here at home, that might be the norm by the time this pandemic is over. Just, don't leave me like this so often? It's hard, you know, to have you gone for these stretches of time, even when I feel confident that you'll be back by a certain date."

"I know," sighed Jocelyn. Damn her unrelenting ambition, and her addiction to litigation, and the part of her that would always be a lawyer, first and foremost. Jocelyn unequivocally loved Maggie more than she loved anything else in the world, and yet sometimes, the law made her forget that this was the case. Maybe Maggie was right and it was time to slow down, but... Jocelyn couldn't bear to relinquish _entirely_ the identity that she had so recently won back and now clutched with all the more awareness of how much she needed it to survive. A reckoning for a different evening, no doubt. Jocelyn felt it wouldn't be fair to come to any firm conclusion right now, at any rate, not when the entire world was in such a state of upheaval.

It was in the midst of grappling with all of these thoughts that a perfectly glorious aroma wafted under the door of Jonah's room. Jocelyn sat up, her curiosity piqued.

"What is it?"

"Smells like Sharon is cooking something delicious." Jocelyn grinned. "You might have competition, Maggie."

"Is that so?" Although Maggie had always taken considerable pride in her cooking, she looked more ruffled than Jocelyn would have expected.

"Oh, stop fretting," Jocelyn laughed. "You know I can't wait to get out of here. Wouldn't matter if Sharon prepared gourmet feasts every evening, I'd still rather split a bowl of carbonara with you any night."

"And, soon enough, we will." Maggie smiled into the camera. "Enjoy, love. I'll see you soon."

Jocelyn padded in stockinged feet over to the kitchen, where Sharon was shaking turmeric into a sizzling saucepan.

"What's this?" Jocelyn asked above the splatter of bubbling oil.

"Chana masala," Sharon explained. She dipped a spoon into the pot, tasted it, and shook in some more garam masala. "Was getting tired of sandwiches and soup every evening, thought I'd take the time off to try something a little more memorable for your last night here. Mind checking the rice?"

Jocelyn grabbed a potholder and lifted the lid off of a pot of basmati rice, hot steam billowing into her face. The rice was still watery; she put the lid back on.

"I've never had the courage to try to make curry before," she confessed. "I'm impressed."

"Next-door neighbours growing up were Bengali," Sharon shrugged. "Not like their mum would ever let me help in the kitchen, when I was over, but I suppose this just strikes me as being food that normal people prepare and eat at home, not something that you need to go to Brick Lane to get. Certainly not something that requires courage to make."

"Well, you certainly had that advantage over me," Jocelyn laughed. "Broadchurch has branched out considerably in its culinary offerings, since I was a girl. I don't think I tried chana masala until I was at least thirty."

"Better late than never, though, right?" Sharon turned down the heat to let the curry simmer.

"Right," Jocelyn agreed. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. "Actually, you might be interested to know that it was when I was working on that pro bono case in Whitechapel."

"Really." Sharon smiled, recalling how her student self had been fascinated enough by that particular case to track down the lawyer who had prosecuted it. "The case without which neither of us would be standing in this kitchen today." She hesitated. "You never have told me why you took it on, you know, and I've only spent the last thirty-some-odd years being desperately curious."

"Oh." Jocelyn sighed. "Well, there's a long and complicated story, of course, but the simplest version is that I'd once promised a friend that I'd take on cases of that nature, and I was trying to fulfill that promise. Besides, it was a fascinating case on which to work. Horrifying, but fascinating."

And it had been much more simple, at first. When Raj had roped Jocelyn into the project, it had been one easy prosecution of a group of teenage boys who had broken into a shop run by an elderly Bengali immigrant. By the end, it was a multifaceted case involving a local gang hellbent on terrorising the local Asian community, and ultimately charged with multiple commercial burglaries, two arsons, the vicious battery and assault of a seven-year-old boy, and one homicide (gunshot) of a twenty-year-old man. Jocelyn worked until midnight each night for three weeks straight, completing her work for her QC, then diving into the complex webs of depositions and affidavits for the Whitechapel case. Only through the most careful untangling of all the snarls in the webs had Jocelyn been able to get the evidence straightened out into a fashion that the jury would understand clearly. The gang members were sentenced to decades in prison for their actions. Jocelyn, who had barely slept over the past four months, needed to borrow Raj's handkerchief as they left the courtroom to mop up her tears of sheer relief.

"Well, here's to us," Raj told her that evening. They were sitting at a table in a tiny curry house somewhere in Bethnal Green, and Raj had just ordered a series of dishes in one long sentence of Bengali, the names flowing without a jot of hesitation. "That was one hell of a battle you fought and won, Jocelyn. Couldn't have done it without you. My mum and all of her friends are ready to adopt you, in case you decide you need any adoring Asian surrogate aunties pampering you, in the near future."

"Thanks to you, I think I've just reached the pinnacle of my legal career," Jocelyn joked, stifling a yawn. "Although the next time you come knocking at my door for help, I'll know to ask in advance whether it's a case that's going to take years off my life. I'm going to go straight to sleep when I get home."

"And, believe me, everything you're about to digest is only going to contribute to that impulse," Raj grinned. "Really, though, sleep the entire weekend through, if you need to. You deserve it."

A few young women across the way kept glancing at Jocelyn and Raj and whispering among themselves. Jocelyn, already punchy from exhaustion, found this far more amusing than she really should have. No doubt the women thought that she and Raj were a couple, and no doubt they were livid that someone like Jocelyn should have managed to ensnare a man with Raj's movie-star good looks. Jocelyn sat back and platonically admired her dining partner, with his sparkling eyes and easy grin and thick black hair. Really, it was a pity she was far more interested intrinsically in the gossiping women themselves than in Raj. He was one of her closest friends, after all, and Jocelyn thought that he'd be an absolutely lovely person with whom to spend the rest of her life, in theory.

"Penny for your thoughts," Raj said.

"Oh, nothing," Jocelyn sighed.

"Jocelyn Knight, thinking nothing?" Raj's eyebrows raised. "I suspect it's more like there are fourteen complex thoughts going on all at once in that head of yours, and you can't figure out which to focus on."

"If you must know," Jocelyn said, "I was thinking of how jealous all of those women over there must be that I'm here with you."

"Mmm, more's the pity for them," Raj said, stifling a yawn of his own. A moment later, he glanced at Jocelyn, suddenly wide awake. "By which I mean, I can't imagine any woman I'd rather be treating to dinner tonight than you."

"Why, thank you," Jocelyn laughed, but she couldn't help but notice that Raj remained slightly on edge. After a few more minutes of meaningless banter, she put a hand on his. "Raj, is everything all right?"

"Yeah, of course." Raj smiled one of his beautiful smiles at Jocelyn, but after a moment, his confidence faltered. "I mean, yes, it is, but I've just been under a lot of stress recently, beyond this case."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Raj ran a hand over his mouth with a long exhale, staring off into the far corner of the room.

"I've been seeing someone," he told Jocelyn finally. "And my family would not be happy about it."

"Not a nice Bengali girl?"

" _Definitely_ not a nice Bengali girl," said Raj with a jagged laugh. "His name's Edward George Bennington III, and if my ultra-traditional parents find out, I'm afraid they'll literally never speak to me again."

For a shocked moment, Jocelyn didn't know what to say. Raj watched her, apprehensive.

"Well, I'd certainly _hope_ they'd keep speaking to you!" Jocelyn said finally. "And honestly, if this victory alone hasn't been enough to earn you their lasting respect, then their standards are clearly impossibly high."

The twinkle had returned to Raj's eyes.

"Have you been able to take the temperature of anyone else in your community?" Jocelyn asked. "See how they react, as a barometer for how your parents might?"

"Jesus, _no_ , Jocelyn!" Raj laughed. "The reason I'm such an effective social organiser within the London Bengali community is because _everyone_ knows my family; but the downside is that if I mentioned this to anyone, do you know how quickly word would get back to my mum? There's a reason I'm telling _you_ , of all people, and that reason is because you're not going to go blabbing on me! Also because, of everyone I know besides Eddie himself, you seem the least likely to shun me forever for this sort of thing."

"It would be highly ironic for me to treat you with any sort of intolerance, coming off of today's massive spate of successful hate crimes prosecutions," Jocelyn pointed out.

"True," Raj grinned. "Well, thank you for letting me get that off my chest."

Jocelyn hesitated.

"What if you told your mum and her friends that your friend Jocelyn the barrister was only interested in dating women?" she asked. "Could that be a useful gauge?"

Raj pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"Well, the thing is, my friend Jocelyn the barrister is white and not a part of the community. So, even though it would take a bit of a mental leap, I think my mum and her friends would be more willing to accept it. You haven't been a part of their conceptual framework as long as I have, after all." He paused. "Also, don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"Tell anyone what?" Jocelyn raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of water. "It was a hypothetical, after all."

"Yeah." Raj winked.

Jocelyn looked out over the curry house, at the families eating together (children squirming in their seats, parents scolding them to sit still), at the arrays of beautifully coloured little bowls of curries and the piles of steaming naan. She had met so many people from within this community, over the course of her time working on the Whitechapel case, and the more she had seen of their London, the more she had recognised just how little she knew about so much in the world. Perhaps Jocelyn had had a very niche set of legal knowledge that the Asian community of Whitechapel had needed, at this moment in time. But the limits of such knowledge were all too apparent to Jocelyn, when there was a whole universe out there of people to meet and places to explore and cultures to understand, beyond the pages of her law books. The dazzling possibility of it all both awed and terrified her.

"You don't seem surprised," she added to Raj. "Is it that obvious?"

"Is what obvious?" Raj asked innocently, and when Jocelyn gently kicked his foot under the table, he added, "Only if you know to look. As is true for any of us, I suppose. I think you're safe."

 _Safe._ Jocelyn hated that Raj had used the most accurate term for the situation. She sighed.

"This entire case has given me something I didn't know I needed, Raj," she told him. "Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to be a part of it."

"Thank _you_ , for providing my friends and family the justice they've so desperately needed," Raj replied as their food arrived. "And, right on time, to demonstrate my thanks..."

Following his lead, Jocelyn spooned some chana masala onto her plate and tore off a bit of naan to mop up the sauce. Its savoury tang was, Jocelyn was positive, the most delicious flavour that she had ever tasted.

"Well, I can only hope that this will live up to your high expectations, then," Sharon laughed. "Do you still keep in touch with Raj? He sounds lovely."

Jocelyn shook her head bitterly.

"He's dead. AIDS." After a moment, she added, "I don't let myself think about him often, but when I do, it reminds me how much I viewed him as the brother that I never had. Probably the reason he was the first friend to whom I came out explicitly."

"Did his parents ever find out, about him?"

"Oh, yes. They didn't take it that well, at first. Ironically, they were just coming around to the idea when he died." Jocelyn smiled. "I should reach out to them, if they're even still alive. His mother really did like me quite a lot."

Sharon turned off the burner under the rice and spooned food into two bowls on the counter.

"Part of me will always wonder what my life would be like now, if I had kept on working on cases like Whitechapel," Jocelyn continued after a moment, taking her bowl from Sharon. "If I hadn't let the zeitgeist of the 1980s scare me away from fighting for justice for the communities who needed the help most. We might still have met, you know."

"Well, there's no use losing sleep over it," Sharon sighed. "Can't change the past, after all. We'll just have to keep on fighting for justice for all those communities in the future."

Jocelyn nodded and followed Sharon into the dining room for their last supper together, until whenever the curve flattened and the lockdown lifted and the world went back to normal. The chana masala smelled divine. Assuming it tasted just as incredible, Jocelyn would have to get the recipe from Sharon, for Maggie to try sometime after they were reunited in less than a day.


End file.
